BLUES joins the World Sponge Conference 2025

Ahead of the General Assembly meeting in Portugal, several of the BLUES partners attended a key event for marine invertebrate aficionados 

Small but mighty - for those of us who hold marine invertebrates and sustainability dear, sponges need no introduction. And this year we were delighted to join the event for researchers and experts on this species: the annual World Sponge Conference in Vila do Conde, Portugal. 

Our colleagues at Wageningen University & Research and Møreforsking presented a poster on A Novel Cryoprotectant for Marine Sponges and Beyond, introducing a new solution that can be used to cryopreserve sponges, and explaining why this is important in the first place (e.g. when sponges come from geographically remote places). 

And that's not all - our colleague Marina Pozzolini at the Università degli Studi di Genova conducted an oral presentation, deriving from her research in our project, on Genomic and transcriptiomic insights into the fibrillar collagen gene repertoire of the marine sponge Chondrosia Reniformis Nardo, 1847. 

At the end of the day, advancing knowledge through your research is fantastic, but getting to share it with your peers and exchange experiences? Even better. We're looking forward to more such opportunities to connect with experts!